


Elliott Gussman and the Alien Boy/Government Experiment that He Absolutely Did Not Steal, Not At All

by KittenAnarchy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Accidental Person Acquisition, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Memory Loss, amnesia aus are my jam, and some guy is convinced ur a gov experiment on the run, and then i remembered that i'm writing this to fufill my very niche need of, hand-waved amnesia problems, i thought about doing more research on it, its gonna be mostly cracky with some angst tbh, like wtf????, more elliott, more elliott gussman and five bonding together, so you decide to make him ur dad, sucks to be you five, tags will update, tfw you land in 1963 and lose ur memories of mostly everything but the worst part of your life, the serial killer dna thing is going to be touched upon bc honestly no one talks about it enough??, tws will be at the start of each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:20:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26601289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenAnarchy/pseuds/KittenAnarchy
Summary: Elliott Gussman is having a fairly good day... and then a bloody boy falls from the sky and lands on the pavement in front of him.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Elliott Gussman
Comments: 25
Kudos: 165





	Elliott Gussman and the Alien Boy/Government Experiment that He Absolutely Did Not Steal, Not At All

**Author's Note:**

> tw for vague implications of a vivisection and blood

Elliott Gussman is having a fairly good day. 

He’s sold some television sets, the president is coming around in a couple of days, and he can’t keep the skip in his step as he walks past the alleyway next to his apartment.

And then a boy flashes into existence, cracking his head on the pavement in the alleyway next to his apartment. 

“Jesus christ!” The boy isn’t moving. Elliott rushes over, and _dear god, that is a lot of blood, holy fuck._ “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god-” He’s not even thinking as he hauls the boy up and into his arms, rushing into the backdoor and up the stairs. He nearly drops the boy as he fumbles for his keys, acutely aware of the sharp shallow breaths coming from the boy’s shivering and deathly pale form. 

It’s when he drops the boy on his couch that he realizes that he has _no idea_ what he is doing. 

“Okay, okay,” Elliott mutters to himself, swinging open cabinet doors for the first aid kit he _knows_ he left somewhere. “Everything is okay. You just have an alien child bleeding out on your couch. That’s okay. Everything is fine.”

  
  
When he finally finds the first aid kit, an empty little thing with only some wipes and ace bandages, the boy is groaning, tossing and turning and leaving blood on his couch cushions. “...no...where…” 

Is he having a nightmare? Can aliens even _have_ nightmares? 

Elliott pulls a chair over to the boy and sets down his medical supplies. Against his better judgement, he cards his fingers through the boy’s blood-crusted raven locks, hopefully in a comforting gesture. 

And then the boy’s eyes crack open, glazed and half-lidded. 

Elliott _freezes_. 

_‘Is this how I’m going to die?’_

“..v’n’ya..’ego...?” The boy mumbles, pupils blown wide and flickering across the room. He makes an aborted motion to reach for Elliott, but stops with a hiss. “...hurts. ‘M dyin’?” He sounds resigned, like it’s something he’s been ready for a long time.

Jesus _fuck_ . There is something incredibly unsettling about the thing that looks like a half-dead twelve-year-old boy talking so casually about death.

“No! No, no, no, you’re gonna be just fine, I swear,” Elliott reassures, fumbling for his alcohol wipes. “Just stay awake. No one’s dying.”

In spite of just telling him to stay awake, the boy’s eyes slip shut anyway, body going lax. “Shit!” Elliott makes quick work of taking off the kid’s jacket - what kind of emblem is that? - and as he goes to unbutton the shirt, something on the kid’s inner wrist catches his eye. “What in the world?” 

It’s a simple black tattoo, an umbrella enclosed in a circle. 

He’s only thirteen. 

Elliott doesn’t know a lot about tattoos, but he sure as hell knows that a child shouldn’t be sporting them. 

The boy lets out a pained moan. Right, his injuries. 

He’s only more and more horrified as he checks over the kid’s body - blood dripping from his head, his side is in literal stitches, an incision scar running from the top of chest and disappearing into the waistband of his underwear, patches of crusty blood over his body, an old incision wound on his other arm - the list just goes on. It doesn’t help that there are stains of blood and tears on the boy’s clothes either. 

What happened to this kid?

His patch job isn’t the best, but the kid looks relatively less on the verge of death when Elliott’s done, so he’ll count it as a win. “I’m, um, gonna get you some new clothes, okay?” Elliott awkwardly addresses the body dead to the world on his couch. 

He did have an old pair of rain boots Eleanor had left before their divorce, and a pair of cargo shorts his ex-in-laws bought for him that he never wore and shoved in a closet. The kid would just have to do with baggy socks and shirts until Elliott could properly take him to a store- 

_Wait. What am I doing?_

He’s not going to harbor a government experiment. 

_Well, giving him clothes doesn’t mean I’m keeping him_ , Elliott reasons. _He'll get an infection or something if he stays in that dirty uniform, though._ Satisfied with this logic, he picks up the discarded pieces of clothing on the floor. He’ll have to burn these. 

As he reaches for the jacket, he notices the lump in it’s pocket. “Huh?” There’s a small box tucked inside, with the word ‘The Frankel Footage’ written on it. 

_This is why the government wants him. He has information_. 

“I have to get this footage developed.” Elliott mutters mostly to himself, shoving it in the back pocket of his pants. He’ll find a better hiding place for it later. This is the moment he’s been waiting for, ever since the first alien (experiments?) came in 1960. 

Oh god, the other aliens. 

Do they even know their (possible) relative is here? Maybe they’re not even related, but if Elliott were one of the few members of an alien race on Earth, he’d like to know about the others. On the other hand, the boy seems a lot younger than the rest of them… they might not know about him.

  
  
_Maybe when the boy wakes up,_ Elliott thinks as he grabs a fresh set of clothes from his closet, _I’ll ask him._

He nearly startles from the loud groan on his couch. Elliott dumps the clothes on the nearest chair and quickly makes his way over. 

The boy’s eyes flutter, and small fists come up to rub away any sleepiness.

Elliott tenses as green eyes blearily flicker over to him. “Hey…” He says, approaching the possible government experiment slowly. “My name is Elliot. Elliott Gussman. What’s your name, little guy?” 

“Don’t call me that.” The boy snaps weakly, almost instinctively. He’s rubbing his head, brushing his fingers along the bandages. “My name is… my name... I don’t...” He trails off, face pinching in confusion.

What did the government _do_ to him? 

“Hey, don’t push yourself. It’s not the end of the world.” The boy stiffens. 

“The end of the- that’s- it _is_.” He says suddenly, looking at Elliott with panicked eyes. His breathing starts to quicken, and he pushes himself up and off the sofa, stumbling on shaking legs. “What’s the date? The exact date, I need to…” 

“November 15th?” Elliott hesitantly reaches to place a hand on the boy’s shoulder, pulling back at the full-body flinch. “Are you sure you should be up? You’re injured…” 

“I’ve got to, there’s no time, there’s never time…” The boy leans on the back of the sofa, pale and shaking. “It is the end of the world. The end of everything… no, the end of something? I can’t…” He takes a deep breath, running a hand through his dirty hair. “The apocalypse. it happens in 10 days.” 

Oh. 

  
Oh _shit_.


End file.
